A Week Ago Today . . .

Aquake . . . I mean, not a week ago this minute or this hour, but a week ago today, I was in the 7.2 earthquake originating in northern Mexico, south of Imperial County, California.

I my area, it was felt with an intensity on the modified Mercalli scale of IV-V. Everybody (indoors and out) felt motion, but things weren't destroyed.

While I've felt small jolts from time to time since moving to California (including while doing Catholic Answers Live–and commenting about it on air!), it brought to mind the previous major earthquake I was in.

That was the Northridge quake, from 1994. 

Though I had friends in the L.A. area, like Ken Hensley, were are much, MUCH closer to the epicenter, in my area it was again felt as a IV-V quake. Things shook. Everyone felt it. Not much was destroyed. Parked cars rocked. Sleeping people were awakened.

Including me.

At the time, I was sleeping in the water bed I still had from when I was married. (My wife had chronic sciatica problems, which the bed helped with, and I kept it for a time after she died in 1992 and after my 1993 move to California.)

In January 1994, I woke up rocking from side to side, with the water sloshing around and the car alarms going off in the parking lot of the apartment complex where I lived.

I didn't know about getting under the door frame at the time (a concept I later learned from the Animaniacs–which may not be such a great idea after all, from what I've heard lately).

But the Animaniacs made this song out of it (which I can sing from memory–or at least the version appearing on one of the CDs they made) . . .

Love the rhymes! ("The dirt, the rocks, and all those aftershocks. It's just a planet moving granite several city blocks.)

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

4 thoughts on “A Week Ago Today . . .”

  2. Ah, gotta love the Animaniacs. They’ve got a song for every occasion. Thanks to them, I can rattle off a list of US presidents from Washington to Clinton, and I’m not even American! It came with an awesome ending too: “The next president to lead the way, well it might just be yourself some day. Then the press will distort everything you say, so jump in your plane and fly away!”

  3. Ah, I remember the Northridge quake. We lived just next to Northridge at the time. All three kids spent the rest of the night in bed with us while we read aloud The Hobbit to distract them.
    Thanks for the song — I’d never heard it before. My favorite line: “We won’t let it get us down — we’re Californians!” (So true.)
    What always comes to my mind during earthquakes is the L.A. Filkharmonic’s rendition of Richter Scale. The lyrics are here at this Caltech site. You can click on a button there to hear it performed by the Caltech Stock Company:
    http://archives.caltech.edu/exhibits/earthquake/mod3/1024×768/html/pg14.html
    (The Filkharmonic’s version was a bit livelier.)

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